Regulating mitochondrial translation and biogenesis

Environmental conditions control cytosolic translation via signaling pathways but these pathways to control mitochondrial translation is lacking.

The researchers demonstrate that mitochondria remodel the structure and composition of mitochondrial ribosomes (mitoribosomes) in response to metabolic state. Changes arise from a metabolism-modulated mitoribosome assembly pathway regulates the composition and conformation of the mitoribosome, thereby adjusting its translation activity to meet metabolic demands.

This structural ‘‘gear-switching’’ mechanism fine-tunes mitochondrial translation and biogenesis, compensating for the absence of dedicated signaling pathways within mitochondria.

The authors also demonstrate that translation activity of the mitoribosome feeds back to regulate the biogenesis of nuclear-encoded mitochondrial proteins, influencing mitochondrial functions and aging.

https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(25)00853-6

https://sciencemission.com/remodeling-of-mitochondrial-ribosomes